Odds and Ends
by crestoflight3
Summary: It's a rainy day, and Arthur finds himself facing a horrible fact. He's bored. Set before Diamond of the Day.


**With 'Merlin' officially over, I decided to entertain a plot bunny. Please enjoy!**

**This takes place before 'The Diamond of the Day,' of course. Everything else is canon in nature.**

* * *

It was a dark morning. Grey clouds covered any hint of blue in the sky; a frosty chill, reminiscent of the passing winter, coated the inside of the stone castle.

There was supposed to have been a meeting with a mayor from a prominent town that morning, but a messenger brought the news that he would come the next day, for fear of being caught in a storm.

There was supposed to have been a relaxing luncheon with the queen, but she had been invited to the opening of a new bakery by an old friend, and had gone to spend her time reminiscing of her life as a commoner.

There was supposed to have been a hunt that afternoon, but that was speedily cancelled as, directly following the lunch hour, the clouds finally burst apart in a generous outpour.

There was supposed to have been a servant, but he had been called away to work with the court physician for the day, and was thus unavailable for the remainder of the afternoon.

Needless to say, Arthur Pendragon wasn't in the best of spirits on that particular day.

"There's nothing to do," he grumbled to himself, just loudly enough that someone passing by in the hallway would be able to hear. Maybe that someone, a trusted knight, perhaps, would hear his cries of desolation and enter into the scene, offering a remedy for his dismal situation.

No one came into the room. The king repeated his woeful statement, louder, but to no more success than the first time.

There was supposed to have been a brilliant solution to his problem, but it failed to make itself known. Rain continued to pound on the windows behind his chair.

So Arthur contented himself with flicking a quill between his fingers.

He hadn't been lying; there was nothing on his agenda to do. No new treaties to make, no resolutions to declare, no wars for which to prepare. The bandits had been driven away last month, and no new thefts had come to light in the following weeks. Even the traitorous Morgana had remained oddly quiet, not that Arthur was going to complain about the newfound peace.

If only peace was a little more interesting.

Flicking a quill between one's fingers can only amuse someone for so long. With a great huff of despondency, Arthur stood up and stretched, putting the quill down. It had served him well for the last ten minutes, and it would serve to entertain him more later, if another form of entertainment couldn't be found. Maybe he'd knight it out of sheer boredom. _Sir Quill Eagle-Feather..._it had a nice ring to it...

With a slow look around his dormant quarters, the king sighed once more and left his place of residence. Someplace else in the castle, something would be happening that he could participate in. This was Camelot. Something was always taking place here.

The hallway was silent; the only sound was the monotonous rain. The thunder had passed by, leaving only the steady pound of drop upon drop. Even the weather wanted to bore him!

And so, with that dreary thought, Arthur proceeded to wander the castle. He didn't meet another sign of life until he slowly followed the stairs onto the lower floor. There, a small assortment of servants were doing their daily duties-collecting laundry out of the more recently-used guest rooms, beating the tapestries of their dust, sweeping the stone floors of dirt and grime. Each worker bowed to the king as he passed with a raised eyebrow.

Of course, there were no recently-used guest rooms in need of laundering, nor any dust intertwined in the magnificent tapestries or any dirt or grime on the smooth floor. The servants were just trying to find something to do.

Arthur was tempted to join them in their quest to attain absolute cleanliness. He would have, too, but he was the king of a distinguished kingdom. And, he supposed, he wasn't _that_ bored to do menial housework.

"Carry on," he told the servants, nodding to them. They looked down and continued on their task.

At the end of the hallway, he made a right; at the end of the next hallway, he turned left, no destination in mind. Something would appear to help him, surely...

At that moment, a shape shot out of an open doorway and nearly ran into him. It caught itself moments before, and spun around, facing the room it had escaped from.

Before Arthur had time to speak, another shape ran out and rammed into the first, which lost its balance and fell over. Onto the king.

"Get off of me!" Arthur said in indignation.

The first shape jumped up in alarm. "Sorry, I apologize...oh, it's you. Never mind."

"Gwaine?"

The knight smiled a victorious grin. "The one and only." He leaned over and helped the king up again.

"Might I ask, why did you feel the need to make me acquainted with the floor?"

"Oh, well, the floor was feeling lonely," Gwaine answered easily, running a hand through his hair.

The figure behind Gwaine stifled a chuckle. "Percival, you think this is funny?" Arthur asked, crossing his arms.

The broad knight bit his lip quickly. "No, Your Highness. Not funny at all."

"When did running out of rooms become common practice?" the king asked the two men.

They looked at each other. Gwaine was the first to speak. "When Percival decided that raiding the kitchen was a good idea."

"You're the one that decided that. I just nodded in agreement, and you charged out," Percival defended himself. He looked at the blond leader. "Sorry."

"No." Arthur held up his hand. "That plan sounds brilliant. Mind if I tag long?"

Gwaine and Percival exchanged bewildered looks before shrugging.

A little while later, the three men were assembled outside of the castle kitchens. "What do we do?" Arthur asked in his normal voice.

The knights glared at him. Arthur shifted around, uncomfortably. "Sorry," he whispered. "What's the plan?"

Gwaine started to motion toward the ceiling, then to the open doors of the busy kitchen, then to himself. Without a hint of understanding, Arthur decided to nod along.

The meaning of the mysterious sign language soon became clear. Percival put an arm on the king's shoulder and pulled him toward an awaiting staircase while the third of their trio waited calmly, spying on the open doorway.

"We...go in...here," Percival grunted at the top of the empty stairway, pulling open a man-sized hatch in the wall.

Arthur stared. "Why?" he asked, his expression one of complete and utter confusion and skepticism. "What's in a storage cupboard?"

The knight flourished his arms at the opening; Arthur took his cue and entered the small room. Percival followed and slid the hatchway closed with a small amount of effort.

The rain was louder here than it had been on the stairs; the increase in the noise became obvious as Arthur looked up. One of the sides of the storage space was cut with vents to the outside. Looking at the ground, he became aware of a metal grille taking up the majority of the center of the floor. Through the grill, he spied a billow of steam coming from an assortment of pots and pans. The kitchen.

Ah. This would be how the smoke escaped from the kitchen. It went through this room, which opened to the sky, but the rain would remain blocked from ruining the food.

The room below was a ramble of activity; a couple of chefs were going from pot to pot, checking the food, stirring here, adding a seasoning there. More servants were cleaning up spilled flour and washing sticky plates.

Percival put a finger to his lips and motioned toward two metal hooks attached to several meters of twine, lying in one of the corners of the smoke room.

At this moment, Gwaine entered the kitchen, a figure of smirking assurance.

Arthur watched in silence as the head cook instantly tried to shoo him away. "...trouble...not allowed...not sneaking anything from the meal this time!" were several of the phrases that reached his ears. Gwaine didn't seem to mind the antagonistic shoving. He pressed forward, dipping a finger in some purple sauce and bringing it to his lips. His other hand quickly gripped a pan of freshly-baked pastries.

As the cook hurried him away from the sauce pan, he turned, shielding the now-moving pan from the cook with his body. Gently, he set the pastries down on some pans, directly below the metal grille, and nodded in mock solemnity as the master of the kitchen appeared to berate him.

Arthur raised his eyebrow. "How many times have you done this?" he whispered to Percival, who handed the king one of the hooks.

Threading his own hook and twine through one of the many holes below him, Percival smirked and muttered, "Enough."

A short time later, the two men left the room, a small pile of cream-filled desserts filling their hands. Gwaine was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs; he grabbed one of the pastries from Percival and popped it in his mouth. "And that," he said, his mouth full of crumbs, his lips coated in sugar, "is raiding the kitchen."

After that, the two knights departed to inspect the city, as per their duty. Arthur would have joined them, but it was still raining, and he didn't want to mar the taste of sugar and vanilla still in his mouth. So, instead, he took to wandering around aimlessly again.

He stopped in the stables for a short time, but quickly left when he realized that the thatched roof was leaking. After asking a servant to try to fix the hole before the next rain, he left in pursuit for something else.

He stopped in the library for a short time, but, after reading a chapter about the history of a country he had never heard of, he decided he wasn't in the mood for a lesson, and left to look for something new.

He stopped in the kitchen again, but the pastries had disappeared-he could only hope they'd make a grand appearance at dinner that night.

He stopped by the treasury, but he had left his master key in his room, and didn't feel like heading back and returning just to look at gold for the hundredth time.

He stopped by the dungeons, but they were empty, and thus devoid of any interest. It was at this time, as he was walking up the staircase from the freezing prison cells, that the inspiration hit him.

Of course. Why hadn't he thought of it before?

His servant might be working on medical subjects at the moment, but he was still in the castle. Without another thought, Arthur took off-albeit at a gentle pace-toward the physician's tower.

From outside the door, the king could hear Gaius' gentle instructions, describing properties of herbs that Arthur couldn't name, let alone remember. It appeared that the physician was giving his manservant a lesson. He waited by the wooden door until he heard the elderly man's voice grow silent; he waited a few more minutes, counting the bricks until he lost track, and then entered the room.

Gaius was sitting at a table, mixing a tonic of some sort, glancing at a book in front of him regularly. Merlin was sitting at a different table, carefully measuring herbs onto little pieces of cloth. Both looked up as the door creaked open.

"Your Majesty?"

"Gaius," Arthur said, nodding at the physician. He looked at the youth at the table. "Merlin."

"My king, might I inquire why you're visiting us at this hour? Is there something you need?"

Arthur swallowed heavily. Maybe coming here was a bad idea-no, it was a good idea. They were just making it uncomfortable, staring at him as if he were a drunken sailor. "Not especially, no. Er...I was...I mean...Merlin, I'm...bored."

Student and teacher looked from each other to their king. The younger spoke. "Really. And I'm supposed to do what, exactly?" He seemed amused, a half-grin forming on his face.

Arthur shrugged. "Continue with your work, I suppose." He leaned against the door frame and motioned for the two others to do as they had been.

With looks of incredulity, they followed his instructions and continued to do their allotted tasks. Merlin finished measuring out the herbs and tied up the cloth into a small bundle, which he then labeled and set aside. Unfolding a new cloth, he set it in the old one's place and started to measure again.

Suddenly, he looked up at Arthur. "You're just going to stand there, then?"

The king nodded. It seemed like a good idea, even if he had no idea what they were doing.

Gaius spoke without looking up. "If Your Majesty is in search of occupation, he could assist in preparing dry ingredients."

Arthur looked at the old man sharply. "What? No, I don't know anything about physician work..."

"Nonsense. It doesn't take a surgeon to measure and tie. Merlin, help him get started."

Merlin looked at Arthur in inquiry; Arthur looked at Merlin in questioning. The former shrugged and cleared a space next to him, setting down a new square of cloth next to his own.

Arthur hesitated, then sat down in his new workspace.

* * *

When Gwen returned to the castle, evening had fallen. The storm had long since disappeared into the horizon; torches were lit periodically, giving light and heat to the darkened halls.

Leon approached her. "I hope Your Highness has had a pleasant afternoon," he said, taking her cloak from her.

She smiled and patted his arm. "It was most pleasant." She then looked around. There were several servants roaming the halls, and a few knights traipsing past, but that was all. "Do you know where Arthur is?" she asked.

"No. I haven't seen him since earlier this afternoon," the knight confessed before taking his leave.

Gwen wasn't worried; the palace was quite large, and Arthur could be in any of a numerous amount of places. She decided to go search.

She began to grow worried when she couldn't find any sign of him, not in their rooms, nor in the treasury. None of the servants could inform her of his location, and Gwaine and Percival just shrugged when she asked if they had any idea.

Quickly, she hurried to her place of refuge, a place where she always had an ally. "Gaius!" she called out, stumbling into the physician's chambers. "I can't find Arthur anywhere! I've searched the castle, none of the servants have seen him..." She stopped talking.

Arthur was right in front of her, paused in the middle of tying away a piece of cloth filled with herbs. He smiled slightly, finished his knot, then waved.

Gwen stared in amazement. Beside him, Merlin was looking oddly happy. "What's going on?" she asked the three men in the room.

They all seemed to shrug simultaneously. "They tricked me," her husband said; he didn't sound too upset. On the contrary, he seemed rather pleased with the idea.

Merlin rolled his eyes. "He was bored. So he's helping us categorize medicine."

"Frankly, he's been a tremendous help," Gaius said.

Arthur raised an eyebrow and stared at the old man; his manservant couldn't hold back a chuckle. "If by 'help' you don't count the fact that he knocked over our entire supply of jasmine root, broke three vials, somehow managed to knock over the bookshelf, and...oh, what else...spilled water over our firewood."

"That was all you. I'm obviously not that clumsy," Arthur said quickly, clearing his throat. "You know, it's late. I'm going to leave you two to finish up here. It all looks...well..." The king quickly stood up and strutted over to his queen at the door. "Carry on..."

And, without further ado, he pulled his wife out of the tower and back into the main castle.

"So, how did you manage to fill your day?" Gwen asked, looking far too amused.

"Oh, odds and ends, political requisites," the king of Camelot answered.

"I hope you weren't too bored. I know you had a lot planned, and the storm and all ruined it..." she sympathized.

Arthur shrugged. "I suppose it wasn't _too_ terrible."


End file.
